Root Platform

Root is a policy administration core first: product modules, rating, issuance, collections, claims and embedded sales journeys all run on code and rules. Claims AI, still in beta, sits on the claims screen as an assistant that reads documents and recommends an outcome, and a second assistant drafts data export templates from plain language requests.

The Workbench is marketed as AI native because developers can build products with coding assistants through Root's MCP server and agent skills, but that tooling helps clients write the product rather than make decisions inside it.

The AI recommends and the workflow decides. Every claim on Root goes to an assessor, who recommends approval or repudiation, and then to a supervisor, who confirms and binds the decision before any payout or repudiation letter goes out. Claims AI sits inside that path: it returns a reasoned approve or reject recommendation against the client's own prompts, flags missing documents and risks, and, by Root's account, never settles, declines or pays a claim or changes a policy. Administrators decide which roles can use it, and answers can be saved to the claim as notes for the team.

Each recommendation comes with written reasoning against the client's checks, and gaps and risks are surfaced in the same answer. Because the checks are prompts the client writes, a claims manager can read exactly what the AI is asked to do, and a new prompt is tested against a reference claim and kept as a draft until it is published. Root labels the feature beta and tells users to verify every response, and it gives no extraction accuracy, error rate or validation method.

Scale carries the evidence: more than 7 million policies in force, more than £50 billion of risk covered and more than 80 live products. Mr Price moved 3 million policies onto Root after a proof of concept, Guardrisk's CarSure sold its first policy through a WhatsApp chatbot two weeks after the build began, and Wagonex car subscribers buy Admiral motor cover in the same checkout on one monthly bill. None of these comes with a cost, loss ratio or conversion figure, and Claims AI has no reported outcome yet.

Claims AI touches only the documents a user marks for AI processing, and only where an administrator has switched AI on for the organization and for that user's role. Client data sits in a multi tenant AWS environment by default, with a single tenant Private Stack available. Root does not say which model reads the documents, whether claim data leaves its AWS environment to reach that model, or whether inputs are kept or used to improve a model that serves other clients.

Root's privacy policy covers the policyholders of its clients as end users, alongside site visitors, clients and dashboard users, and explains what it processes about each. Root says it follows the GDPR, the UK GDPR and South Africa's POPIA, publishes a data processing agreement beside its master services agreement, and gives clients 60 days after termination to export their data. Retention is stated as a principle rather than a schedule, and the policy names no subprocessors.

Root has completed a SOC 2 Type 1 audit of its internal security controls, and clients can obtain the report under NDA through its trust center. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, production access follows least privilege with multifactor authentication, users sign in with two factors, and a public status page reports uptime and incidents. The ISO 27001, card industry and SOC 2 credentials Root cites for its data centers belong to AWS rather than to Root.

As a technology supplier, Root holds no insurance license and states no regulatory position for its own software; its terms put compliance with financial services, consumer protection and privacy law on the client. The platform supplies the tooling those obligations rely on, including complaints handling from intake to close and automated bordereau and regulatory reports, but Claims AI is not mapped to the EU AI Act or to UK or South African conduct rules.

A recommendation to approve or reject a claim is a decision about a person, and Root's controls address access and accountability: AI stays off until enabled per role, prompt presets are built by designated makers and tested on a reference claim before publishing, and a supervisor confirms every outcome. Root publishes no fairness testing, responsible AI policy or bias evaluation for the model behind Claims AI.

Under the master services agreement, the platform comes as is, each party's liability is capped at the fees paid in the previous 12 months, and Root's indemnity covers intellectual property claims only. Claims AI carries Root's own warning that AI is not infallible and that every response needs checking, so a wrong recommendation is the client's to catch. The platform's complaints module lets an insurer log and resolve a policyholder's grievance, including a dispute over an unpaid claim, but Root itself stands behind no AI outcome.

AWS hosts the platform and the Data Adapter, and the add on marketplace names its third party services. The model behind Claims AI, and whoever supplies it, go unnamed, and the privacy policy lists no subprocessors.

Root is the system of record, with a public API reference covering quotes, applications, policies, claims, fulfillment requests, collections, complaints and notifications. Collection modules connect any payment provider, and the add on marketplace already wires in Stripe, Peach Payments, Nedbank debit orders and DebiCheck, Clickatell SMS, Fetchify address lookup, the UK Motor Insurance Database, ComplyAdvantage screening, Codat and Slack.

The SQL Data Adapter, built on AWS Athena, feeds Power BI, Tableau, Qlik or Looker, and scheduled exports drop files to SFTP, HTTPS or S3. Developers build against the platform with a command line tool, an MCP server and published agent skills for coding assistants.

Production runs on AWS across several availability zones, multi tenant by default. Private Stack gives a client a fully managed, single tenant copy of the whole platform, with its own databases, servers and outbound IP addresses, in a dedicated virtual private cloud in the AWS region it chooses; Ireland and Cape Town are among the regions shown. On premises installation is not offered.

Sales run through service orders under Root's published master services agreement, which sets out how fees, renewals and termination work but carries no figures. Prospects can request access to a free trial, and plans and prices are quoted.

Insurers, managing general agents and brand distributors such as retailers, banks and telecoms each have their own route onto the platform. Starter templates cover personal lines (pet, household, device, event tickets, legal expenses and funeral) and commercial lines (motor and fleet, cyber, travel, cycling and small business).

Clients sit in South Africa and the UK, where Root expanded in 2022 and has worked with Admiral since 2023, and the client work spans life cover for Mr Price and EasyEquities, car rental excess cover for Guardrisk and embedded motor for Admiral.